The industrial town of Port Augusta is being watched by energy giants and environmentalists alike to see if it can lead the way to a clean-energy Australia.

ON A LONG FLAT ROAD out of the South Australian town of Port Augusta along the coast, a couple of chimneys rise up in the distance. Out here, where the Spencer Gulf, roads, rail and airports come together, smokestacks are pretty common. Port Augusta is an industrial hub where the salt marsh and outback meet.

But these two chimneys, belonging to Playford B and Northern power stations, have caused more heartache and more hope than most.

"Routine South Australian Health data showed there was double the expected rate of new diagnoses of lung cancer in Port Augusta in the years 2005 to 2007. That caused a lot of concern in the local community," says Dr Douglas Shaw, member of Doctors for the Environment Australia.

Shaw says an earlier study found children in Port Augusta had a higher prevalence of asthma, dry cough and hayfever than those in surrounding areas.

"We can't of course say it is caused by the power stations, but it does raise the question as to what is causing Port Augusta to have the highest rate of these respiratory illnesses."

Daniel Spencer, a campaigner with the community group Repower Port Augusta, says health issues have led local residents to ponder the value of the two coal-fired power stations in their town.

"We know that burning coal is bad for people's health and the community has put up with it because of the jobs that coal has created. But the community has been looking for other options and now there is an alternative."

That alternative is concentrated solar thermal power. Back in 2012 Beyond Zero Emissions, a not-for-profit organisation that provides research and education in renewable energy technologies, put together a strategic plan for completely replacing Port Augusta's ageing coal-fired power stations with renewable energy sources. It proposed using a combination of six solar thermal towers with integrated energy storage together with ninety-five wind turbines.

"This technology is proven, it is technically viable, it is being used in other parts of the world and it can provide power 24 hours a day," says Dr Stephen Bygrave, chief executive of Beyond Zero Emissions.

Surprisingly for a town that has been burning coal since the 1950s, it is a concept that almost everybody in Port Augusta has got behind, from the local council to business groups and unions to environmental and health organisations.

And it's given Port Augusta a national profile as energy giants and environmentalists alike watch to see whether this hard-yakka town can lead the way to a clean-energy industrial Australia.

"I think it is fantastic. The community support is really quite overwhelming," says Port Augusta's mayor, Sam Johnson.

"With the knowledge we have today, we know there are better and healthier ways of doing things, so why wouldn't we want to advance to that next step."

Johnson credits a large part of the community support to his predecessor, Nancy Joy Baluch, who passed away from cancer in 2013.

Mayor of Port Augusta for 29 years, Baluch was committed to finding alternatives to burning coal, largely as a result of her own family's health problems. Her son was a chronic asthmatic while her husband died from lung cancer despite being a non-smoker.

"She was fighting for the best part of between 30 and 40 years to stop burning coal and look to a cleaner air solution," Johnson says.

But cleaner air is not the only reason the residents of Port Augusta want a solar thermal power plant in their town.

They also need the jobs.

"One of my strongest drivers is keeping the jobs locally in our area," says Dan van Holst Pellekaan, the state member for Stuart, which encompasses the Port Augusta region.

"We are going to have to do something because the coal is going to run out pretty quickly."

The Leigh Creek coal mine that fuels Port Augusta's power stations has a lifespan of around another 14 years. After that, it will be lights out for the power stations.

The coal mine and power stations provide jobs for around 450 people, with an additional 500 jobs provided indirectly to suppliers and contractors.

"We have got a period of time to make a transition away from coal and towards renewable energy production, and sooner is better than later," van Holst Pellekaan says.

With a solar thermal power plant operating in a similar way to coal-fired power plants, van Holst Pellekaan says many jobs would be directly transferrable between the different plants.

There would also be the extra jobs created during construction of the plant as well as many flow-on jobs.

"There is an enormous amount of my heart and my work invested in this project because there is the potential for a manufacturing industry here, particularly with manufacturing the thousands and thousands of mirrors that are required for a solar thermal plant," van Holst Pellekaan says.

A select committee enquiry was initiated in the South Australian parliament to investigate Beyond Zero Emissions' proposal for Port Augusta. The committee recommended a more detailed feasibility study be undertaken to examine the idea further.

Alinta Energy, the owner of the power stations, committed to doing exactly that in January this year, commissioning an independent consulting company to undertake a feasibility study for the building of a 50MW concentrated solar thermal power plant.

The plant is smaller than that proposed by Beyond Zero Emissions, but it could provide the platform for expansion down the track if it proves to be viable.

"We are conscious that there is a lifespan [for the power stations] and it would be wonderful both from our perspective and a community perspective for renewables to play some role in the future," says Julianna Klose, spokesperson for Alinta Energy.

"The fact that the plant will not be linked to our current operations gives it a longer life past the existing power stations and gives it more potential for expansion in the future."

The feasibility study will take two years and cost $2.3 million. It is jointly funded by a $1 million contribution from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and a $130,000 grant from the South Australian Government, with Alinta Energy making up the bulk of the cost.

"I am quite hopeful and optimistic that the feasibility study will highlight that this project is a doer and a goer. The community is really quite hopeful that this will eventuate," Mayor Johnson says.

But it is not only the community of Port Augusta that is excited by the project.

Solar example

Dr Keith Lovegrove, a solar thermal power expert with energy consulting company IT Power Group, says if the plant is built it could have tremendous benefits for the renewable energy sector in Australia.

"If we can have one solar thermal power plant built in Australia and everyone can see that plant works day-in, day-out for virtually every day of the year, suddenly the level of confidence that people have will just jump up. The way for the future will become clear."

Lovegrove says that if Australia is to meet all of its energy needs through renewable energy technologies, a quarter of the demand will need to be supplied using concentrated solar thermal power with storage.

He says seeing the first plant built in Port Augusta will go a long way to making that a reality.

And while the large amounts of sunshine needed mean concentrated solar thermal power will not be a solution to all of Australia's coal-fired power stations, such as those in the Latrobe and Hunter valleys, Lovegrove says the project will still provide an impetus for those regions currently wedded to coal to explore other energy sources.

Dr Stephen Bygrave from Beyond Zero Emissions says those alternative energy sources are out there, those areas just need the will that the community of Port Augusta has shown.

"Australia is recognised world-wide for its renewable energy potential. We should be using all of that potential," he says.

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Comments (31)

Hugh Aldersey :

07 Dec 2014 7:19:56pm

Well done, and I hope your project goes ahead.Particularly interested in how you plan to store thermal energy for non sunlight hours. There is talk about salt stack thermal energy storage?(Looking back to ~ 1950 when the French tidal power scheme used pumped storage for times of 'slack water', which was a world first at the time.)

ram :

21 Aug 2014 1:23:26pm

Solar thermal makes alot of sense for Australia. However, using concentrators to a single point tower doesn't make much sense. It minimizes land use, yes, but it increases many other costs -- and Australia has plenty of sunny land. Most operational solar thermal systems, particularly in China, just use a parabolic linear reflector focusing onto a pipe filled with water, or an array of these. Few moving parts outside of the generation plant itself and the generation plant is almost identical to other pressurized hot water generating plants (e.g. such as coal powered plants).

Steve Fuller :

25 Aug 2014 1:07:27pm

There is a difference between solar thermal and solar thermal with storage. The storage component designed to provide baseload generation requires storage compatible technology not just make steam. Add solar PV and wind to the ST with storage plant (as this proposal does) and you have a facility that can optimise the use of the storage technology and so become a viable replacement for coal fired plant.With high tech production and demand forecasting this concept in this location is a winner. A backup gas, diesel of bio-fuel rapid start-up generator may be needed in emergencies but we already have these for peak demand.Add in energy efficiency measures, smart grid technology and the various battery technologies and the fossils and uranium can stay in the ground until our descendants have found safe ways to use them.

Richard :

26 Aug 2014 11:56:00am

RAM, linear parabolic concentrators have much lower concentrating power than a power tower. As a result power towers can give sufficiently high temperatures (>560C) to drive conventional steam turbines efficiently. The higher the temperature the higher the efficiency.

Douglie :

01 Sep 2014 4:38:08pm

One of the problems with conventional steam turbines that is never mentioned is over half of the energy is lost as waste heat in the condenser. If you have a cogeneration facility where the turbine exhaust steam is used in a heating process and then returned as condensate, a vast amount of energy can be saved.

Ohee :

21 Aug 2014 11:50:35am

Worlds largest supplier of Uranium sells to Worlds largest democracy.Now that the negotiations are concluded and the dollars and safeguards are agreed, one would hope that an agreement was reached for both partners to form a joint scientific research centre. I have in mind that the leading Scientist of these great nations would come together, funded in part by the profits generated , to research Renewable Energy Sources.Just realised the negotiations were carried out without us having a Minister for Science.

Mike Pope :

21 Aug 2014 11:49:51am

The industrial town of Port Augusta is being watched by the Abbott government in general and its Environment Minister (Greg Hunt) in particular, since successful deployment of solar-concentrator power generation is not something they would wish to see.

It would herald the (inevitable) demise of fossil fuel use for electricity generation both in Australia and, worse, ultimately threaten Australian coal exports since many importers of Australian coal are likely to opt for solar concentration with its much lower renewable costs.

Mike O'Flynn :

21 Aug 2014 10:11:08am

Good to hear effort going into effective R&D for the future and the community effort behind it. Also thanks to BZE such options are being considered as opposed to the corrupt current national political approach.

jk22 :

Ross McLeod :

I hope there is a way that birds can be prevented from flying through the area - they literally catch fire flying through the concentrated solar radiation.

Every child who has played with a magnifying glass knows this.

Oh, and Spain has several of these that are barely viable now that the government can no longer afford the subsidies - they will not be building anymore now that the government guarantees are no longer available.

John Ashton :

Mike :

21 Aug 2014 9:40:28am

Yes Ross yes - well spotted!And of course turning pastures or forest into permanent wastelands so we can extract and burn the coal underneath never set fire to a single bird. And of course our feathered friends can see, and hence skirt around the vast plumes of toxic, radioactive smoke that comes out of the coal fired power stations. You clearly have thought this through, good job!

akebono :

21 Aug 2014 11:25:50am

As opposed to the billions of dollars per year that the government provides to the fossil fuel industry? What nonsense - the only reason renewable energy is more expensive than fossil fuel derived energy is because of economies of scale, and renewables are rapidly reaching equivalence. Time to catch up with the rest of the world beyond our shores and enter the 21st century. Those living in the past where our energy demands are based on fire will be left behind.

I wonder if you have any credible scientific evidence for your claim that birds will catch fire flying through the light beams produced by these plants, and how many are likely to die? Still they're obviously more important to you than the thousands of people who suffer poor health and ultimately death as a result of burning coal.

Bob Turner :

21 Aug 2014 4:50:57pm

Solar thermal is expensive compared to other renewables but it is it's storage capacity that makes it an essential part of any renewable energy scheme. No single energy source will replace burning coal. We will need a mix of energy sources and each one will have advantages and disadvantages over others. It is getting the mix right that is crucial.

JoeBloggs :

22 Aug 2014 10:13:04am

Though solar thermal doesn't created a legacy of long lived radioactive waste that can persist for hundreds of thousands of year, a problem with the entire nuclear industry has yet to find a solution to or address in any meaningful manner.

I won't even bother mentioning what happens when the nuclear industry stuffs up other than to say .... Chernobyl and Fukushima.

C3PO :

23 Aug 2014 12:18:22am

Joe, one would expect people to learn from such disasters and to prepare better. In the case of Fukushima, how about not placing a reactor in a natural disaster prone area? New reactors are also much safer than they were 50+ years ago.

I would also presume that the nuclear industry have been prevented from burying small amounts of waste deep underground because certain people believe small amounts of material kilometres below the surface are somehow more dangerous than the radiation received from the sun. Newer reactors also reuse this 'waste' to produce more energy and even less waste.

I'm searching for energy sources that reduce all sources of pollution, will not have adverse social impacts and remain cheap and reliable. Renewable energy sources will likely provide a lot of this, especially with research, but to dismiss alternative sources without looking through this, or another, framework is nothing more than ideology.

JoeBloggs :

25 Aug 2014 9:04:35am

Hi C3PO,

The problem wasn't the natural disaster but the fact the company already was advised that this could occur but choose instead to ignore the scientific advice and placed a nuclear reactor in a accident prone location just to save some cash to provide mariginally higher shareholder returns. The profit motive of the nuclear industry is a major problem.

Old reactors were alleged to be safe too, yet clearly they aren't. New reactors operate in the exact same way as the old reactor type do and therefore have the exact same flaws, weaknesses and propensity to cause widespread destruction and contamination.

In relation to the waste the problem isn't that people have been prevented from burying waste (which is what happens in many cases) but that the caskets etc the waste was buried in have corroded and leaked, and the locations where it was buried is pourous and has therefore allowed highly dangerous and very long lived radioactive material to leach into the wider environment, an example of this is the worlds largest nuclear waste repository in Washington State, USA, which has been leaching radioactive material for decades into the water system of Washington State. After all this time not a single long lived radioactive waste repository exists which is capable of storing lovng lived radioactive waste for hundreds of thosands of years. Some like the planned Forsmark repository can hold waste for around a 1,000 years before the storage canisters degrade and leak (though even SKB executives admit they need to store the long lived nuclear waste for 200,000+ years not just 1,000 years). It is also perhaps worth noting when the next iceage will occur in this region and what will happen to the presure differential when 1 km of ice sits on top of the repository, a clue for you, it will force out all the leached radioactive material into the baltic. The only real solution to nuclear waste is to transmute it into less harmful materials in massive particle accelerators that make the HLC look like a toy. But in doing so it would make nuclear energy so expensive as to be utterly prohibitive.

Newer reactors (ie. the theorical ones yet to be built) have yet to resolve any of the issues relating to waste or plant failure. All create long lived radioactive waste and not a single one is 100% fail safe.

If you think the nuclear industry is the answer then you clearly are asking the wrong question.

ps. glad to hear you admit the renewable sector can already provide clean, cheap and reliable energy for our species.

C3PO :

"ps. glad to hear you admit the renewable sector can already provide clean, cheap and reliable energy for our species"

I don't reluctantly admit this - I shout it from the rooftops!

How about I pose this question to you: Does a potential source of energy exist that may be cleaner than current renewables for dense, high-latitude areas? Or may there be unconsidered options in JoeBloggs' desired energy mix that would make good choices better?

I note that your criticisms based on nuclear energy are not directed at the technology, but at the industry. We are arguing two completely different things. Should I boycott all forms of footwear indefinitely simply because some/much of the industry current have regressive child labour policies? Is nuclear power 'bad' or badly run?

Assuming it was well run, is it possible that a well chosen nuclear reactor may produce the same amount of reliable power with a much smaller land input, less actual fuel inputs, less concrete, less rare earth materials, and a smaller waste output compared with comparable amounts of renewables? I'm willing to accept the possibility of yes in some cases. If this is the case, adding nuclear to the desired mix is sensible. Not being willing to consider this is an ideological stance.

Similarly, if you want to provide a 100% fail safe metric to any energy supply, you will have nothing. Consider the number of workers that have died falling off roofs installing solar capacity. Divide this by the total amount of pv energy generated. Do the same with meltdown deaths and the total amount of nuclear energy generated (one hell of a lot) and I suspect that nuclear wouldn't be doing too badly.

Going back to Fukushima, you say that the company chose to ignore scientific advice to maximise shareholder profit. Assuming this is correct (I simply don't know) I'm mostly pissed off at the government for not enforcing insurance. Accepting we live in a market society, had the risk been factored as a cost, the plant would not have been built there. Are you pissed off at the technology or the people who put it in place in Fukushima?

To quickly address your other points, I believe that many regions in Australia have been identified as geologically stable and suitable for long term waste storage. I'm also under the impression that fast breeder reactor would create a lot more energy per unit of fuel than previous reactors, thus producing even less waste.

Consider for a moment the actual inputs/outputs of producing solar cells/wind turbines/CST/whatever, the electricity generated and compare this with nuclear. Not doing so is ideology. The piece of work that was originally referred to is not isolated and is based on reducing impacts and emissions - a goal we should both agree is appropriate.

JoeBloggs :

01 Sep 2014 9:40:19am

Hi C3PO,

It seems you missed the point. It is not the individual companies involved in nuclear energy (though many do cut corners), it is not the industry itself (though many of the faults do relate to the profit motive of the industry), the main problem is the actual technology (current and proposed).

The use of nuclear energy has many problems, the two big ones are how to deal with the long lived and highly dangerous waste (which no one has an economic of viable solution for), and the ramifications of a failure at a nuclear power plant.

You ask a series of questions:

Assuming it was well run, is it possible that a well chosen nuclear reactor may produce the same amount of reliable power with:- a much smaller land input? - no, as the land input has to consider the entire process not just the immediate reactor site.- less actual fuel inputs? - no, wind, wave energy and sunlight are not inputs like radioactive materials are.- less concrete? - no.- less rare earth materials? - no, do consider what is involved in building a nuclear reactors and support facilities.- and a smaller waste output compared with comparable amounts of renewables? - absolutely not, there is no waste output from wind, water power or solar power.

Furthermore you begin to make strange statements like "if you want to provide a 100% fail safe metric to any energy supply, you will have nothing". That is false, you need to consider the ramifications of the failure. For example a wind turbine failed and caught fire is scotland not so long ago and nothing happened. Meanwhile the Chernobyl and fukushima reactors failed and release radiation and long lived radioactive materials over an incredibly wide area which will have a long term consequence. Note too that no long term solution has been found to deal with the remains of the Chernobyl reactor, or the disaster at Fukushima has not abated despite the failure occurring years ago now. Safety is paramount.

No insurance company will insure nuclear energy because of the risks and the consequences of those risks. The premiums calculated simply make nuclear power insanely uneconomic. Which is why the industry is uninsured.

You believe "that many regions in Australia have been identified as geologically stable and suitable for long term waste storage". Unfortunately that is not the case. Corrosions and leaching will invariably occur.

Proposed reactor types still produce waste and carry risks.

Make your input/output calculations to satisfy your ideology, but next time make an attempt to factor in the cost of insurance, the ramifications of failures, the cost of storing vast quantities of waste for the amount of time our species has been out of Africa for (plus some).

C3PO :

02 Sep 2014 9:21:29pm

I'd appreciate if you'd actually think about some of your statements.

You assume that a solar panel/wind turbine is magically created from thin air. There are fuel inputs from creating things. Also please consider how a maintenance person will reach sparsely located renewable systems. Optimal locations to achieve 100% renewable energy will be extremely sparse to reduce variability. Intermittent power (most renewable sources) are nowhere near as useful as baseload or rapid start power systems. This is something that actually needs to be accounted for.

We both agree that the land input has to consider the entire process. However are you comparing the land inputs of equal amounts of generated electricity or a fully functional nuclear generator vs a solar cell? It may well be the latter.

No waste output from wind power water power or solar power? I would like this to be true, but in the real world materials corrode. What's the life of a solar cell given that they degrade over time? If it's ten years, then it will be waste in 10 years. If you recycle it, not everything is recovered and fuel inputs are used.

You have likely misunderstood my words or possibly logic when talking about risks. It is about trade-offs. I am very aware that a nuclear meltdown is much more dangerous than a grassfire from a wind turbine. I can also think of 3 major nuclear disasters. That is the cost of nuclear power supplying huge amounts of electricity to many countries for decades. Solar power has also generated electricity (bugger all in reality) and also has had fatalities and environmental impacts. Despite a dam collapse killing 171,000 people, I don't hear you demonising hydro power as catastrophic. However you mention water as a better source of power. Apart from saying that there are no inputs to producing power from water (a completely ridiculous statement), you simply prefer it without saying why. Look up the safest power sources. My guess is that you haven't and that you won't. If you are making statements without facts, people stop listening.

All I'm asking you to do is to apply the same logic to all options (in this case sources of power) to provide the best solutions. If you believe that solar thermal plants use less concrete than nuclear plants for the energy generated you are clearly not doing this. This is bias and is exactly why I don't see your blanket enthusiasm for renewable power as helpful to reducing environmental degradation.

I'd like to point out that 100% renewable electricity will require a countryload of support facilities - increased maintenance, improved weather forecasting services, additional poles and wires (none of these are small upgrades) in addition to regular support services. Maybe you select things by saying renewable good, others bad. This is ideology as opposed to objectivity - a criticism you may have used of others.

JoeBloggs :

Please do allow yourself and opportunity to adress the key issues I identified for you.

I did note how you simply ignored the matter of nuclear waste, despite it being something that will already be with our species for the next 200,000+ years.

I did also note you brushed over nuclear industry negligence/failures/accidents as if they were as unimportant as a grass fire.

I see you mention the collapse of the Banqiao dam in China, which was consturcted in the 1950's on the Ru River with the help of Soviet consultants as part of a project to control flooding and electrical power generation. That is a wonderful demonstration of negligence in design and rejection of known scientific evidence in relation what it needed to withstand (in relation to rainfall). Much like how TEPCO rejected out of hand the known scientific evidence in relation to what the Fukushima reactors would need to withstand (in relation to tidalwaves).

Fortunately for the chinese, despite their negligent behaviour relating to dam design, and also the choice not to release water from the dam in time (sounds like the Brisbane floods doesn't it) there is no legacy of radioactive contamination in the area effected, nor a widespread plume of radioactived material that contaimated a wide area as in Fukushima (as far south as Tokyo) and Chernobyl (across Europe), nor is there a radioactive hulk (the reactor cores that have melted down) to wonder how to deal with for decades or potentially thousands of years to come as there now is in Japan and in Ukraine.

The long term consequences of a failure of the nuclear industry are remarkably different to a grass fire, or even a dam collapse.

Thanks for spending so much time saying renewable energy plants required materials for production and don't last forever. Which is true of everything. Though the 'waste' isn't a problem, you see you can do what ever you like with it as it won't be radioactive for the next 200,000+ years.

What is next? bananas are more dangerous that nuclear accidents and nuclear waste?

ps. if you want to actually learn what it would take to turn a nation like Australia into one that obtains 100% of its energy from renewables while maintaining its energy security and have a price that is comparable to that of other sources then I'd direct you to read the AEMO report on the matter. This is achievable for something like $300 billion (the NBN costing approx $90 billion by comparision), which includes all the necessary bells and whisles your mentioned would be required.

quokka :

22 Aug 2014 1:24:15pm

Amazing, but not quite true. No solar plant with molten salt storage has been built that can deliver at maximum power 24/7 and none is likely to be built any time soon. I believe the Gemasolar CSP with storage plant in Spain has a design capacity factor of 60%. That means that the average power output over a year is 60% of the maximum rated power.

Solar thermal, even with molten salt storage is not "fully firm" capacity. That means it cannot be relied upon in the same way that a coal, hydro or nuclear plant can to deliver on demand. Solar thermal is still subject to weather conditions but in some ways much better in that respect than PV.

The best use for solar thermal with storage may be in conjunction with PV to meet peak and intermediate demand during the day and the earlier hours of the night. Something else would provide the baseload power and nuclear is the best candidate for that. Such a mix would deliver very low emission electricity.

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